As I sit here nursing my 2nd, and last, Caesar of the evening, I’m thinking about the life of my friend, Greg Gillert. I learned of his passing earlier this week and while, I had a drink that day, I really haven’t sat and mourned. It’s been 30+ years since Greg and I hung out a lot but my memories of those times bring me a lot of joy.
I met Greg though a mutual acquaintance, Keith Weiler, when I was working at Kapp’s Hobby House back in the late 80’s. We shared a love of trains. I had a camera and he had a car so we often went out as a threesome chasing trains.

We spent a lot of time chasing trains around Central Alberta and I took a lot of mediocre photos on our adventures.

I did however get a good photo or two along the way and one of my best shots also coincides with a great story. Sadly, I don’t have the original photo to post, so I’ll have to do with somewhat of a reenactment.

Greg, Keith and I found ourselves out roaming the country side east of Red Deer and we decided to explore the area around the Sissons Coal Mine. While we were there, we spotted the Ardley Railway Trestle spanning the Red Deer River. We drove down the driveway to the house near the trestle and asked the lady there if we could park there to go and explore the bridge. She had no problem with that and we happily marched along the tracks approaching the bridge.

Keith is deathly afraid of height and while he got on the bridge, he really wasn’t happy about it. So, while Greg and I looked around and took our time crossing, Keith put his head down so he could look just ahead of his feet and he went trucking all the way across all 1200 feet of the bridge.

There used to be power lines strung across the bridge back in the day. The lines were long gone, but there were plenty of glass insulators still in place. I walked out and grabbed a couple of them while we were there. (I found them in a box, just last week.) Heights have never bothered me as I know it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end that does it.

It was a windy day when we were on the trestle and since we knew trains are very quiet when they approach you, I kept looking back over my shoulder as we walked.

Suddenly, there was a change in the wind and when I looked back, I saw headlights approaching the trestle.
I said, “Traaain”.
Greg looked at me and said, “Fuck off. Train?” He then looked back and and shouted, “Oh shit, train!”

Being a wood and steel trestle, there are several barrel stands along the east side of the bridge that used to hold barrels of water for fire suppression back when steam engines pulled the trains.

We scrambled about 20 feet or so to the nearest one to await the coming train. I took photos of the approaching train and felt the rush of air as it passed by. It was quite loud as it rumbled and clanked while passing by. The bridge shakes quiet a bit when the train is on it and Greg thought it was pretty cool but as the time passed, he was less and less enthusiastic about it and soon he was just sitting down, waiting for the caboose to pass by.
To me, it was all too soon and it was over. All that could be heard was the singing of the rails as the train faded away in the distance.
Keith popped out of the trees on the south side of the bridge to make sure we’d survived, and waited for us to finish crossing. I told him that it was a rush and should be an amusement park ride.

He looked at me, shook his head and said, “You’re crazy.” (He probably wasn’t wrong about that.)

Greg did get me to make him an enlargement of one of my photos of the train bearing down on us. I probably have a copy of it somewhere but so far, I haven’t found it so here as close as I can get. From what I remember, I believe I was on the same barrel stand for these photos. This train was coming from the opposite direction, and to be honest, it wasn’t as exciting as my first visit.

Maybe my excitement wearing off quickly was because the train was longer than then first time. Maybe it was because I was all alone with no one to share it with. Or, more likely, maybe being more than twice as old as I was the first time, I don’t wow as easily as I used to. No matter the reason, I did think back fondly of my first time up there and reliving it as such was still worth it.

Greg and I kind of drifted apart as our lives evolved. I went off to Calgary to go to school and lost track of more than 1 person in my life. We’d see each other on occasion and I took the photos of his wedding but we didn’t hang out like we used to.

In the ensuing years, we’d see each other every couple of years or so and in 2009, he hired me to take graduation day photos of his girlfriend’s daughter. The relationship didn’t last but he stayed in Mariah’s life and was a grandfather to her children.
The last photo I have of Greg is him looking so proud while dancing with Mariah at her graduation.

I last saw Greg in the spring of last year when he was in shopping for a camera to use while he chased the CPKC steam train from Calgary to Moose Jaw. It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago but as Rod Stewart sings in Young Turks,

“And time is a thief when you’re undecided, and like a fistful of sand, it can slip right through your hands”. 
It passes so quickly sometimes.

As I age and lose more and more people from my life, I better understand the statement an elderly customer told me about 15 years ago. He was downsizing his possessions and said to me that there were certain disadvantages in living a long life. He was in his late 80s when he told me that and he was almost 98 when he passed away. For the longest time, I took that to be solely about the material things we accumulate, but I’ve come to see it as much more.

More often than not these days, I think of Simon and Garfunkel’s words when they sang,

“I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock I am an island

And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries”

And I wonder how hard that could be? Because, feeling pain and crying really isn’t any fun.

Rest in peace old friend.